Each day Grant Wolf (friend, author/editor of Stories of Faith & Courage from Cops on the Street, former executive director of FCPO, and long-time police chaplain) writes a “Thought for Today” based on daily readings from the One-Year Bible. He sends them out via email and also posts them on his website. Today’s thought was a special blessing and is particularly relevant to the ministry of Covered Law Enforcement (for more on being “covered by the blood,” read Scriptural Basis for Covered). I thought I would share Chaplain Wolf’s message with you.

January 30 Thought for Today – “Covered by the Blood”

Take some of the lamb’s blood and smear it on the top and sides of the doorframeof the house where the lamb will be eaten.Exodus 12:7

God had just told Moses that He was going to pass through Egypt, and all the firstborn sons of humans and firstborn of animals would die (Exodus 11:4-6). However, among the Israelites “it will be so peaceful that not even a dog will bark. Then you will know that the Lord makes a distinction between the Egyptians and the Israelites” (11:7). However, for this to be true, urgent action was required from the Israelites: they were to be “covered by the blood.” As God said to Moses, “The blood you have smeared on your doorposts will serve as a sign. When I see the blood, I will pass over you. The plague of death will not touch you” (Exodus 12:13).

For the Israelites who believed God, trusted in His word and were obedient to His command, death did not come that first Passover night. All was at peace in their households. Since the time of Christ, God has promised that all who believe in Him, trust in His word, and accept the shedding of Jesus’ blood on the cross to cover their sins will, like the Israelites, be exempt from death – not the dying of our physical bodies, but “the second death” (Revelation 2:11). As Romans 5:1 says, we are made right in God’s sight by faith, and we have “peace with God because of what Jesus Christ our Lord has done for us” (by the shedding of His blood).

Hebrews 10:19-22 reads as follows: And so, dear brothers and sisters we can boldly enter heaven’s Most Holy Place because of the blood of Jesus. By his death, Jesus opened a new and life-giving way through the curtain into the Most Holy Place. And since we have a great High Priest who rules over God’s house, let us go right into the presence of God with sincere hearts fully trusting him. For our guilty consciences have been sprinkled with Christ’s blood to make us clean….

Just as God was assembling and preparing the Jews for their “exodus” from Egypt to the Promised Land, today He is assembling and preparing a group of people – “Believers” – for their exodus from earth and return to their original home, heaven. But, as He required for the Israelites to “be at peace with Him,” Believers must be “covered by the blood.”

As the gospel song goes:

Would you be free from the burden of sin?
There’s pow’r in the blood, pow’r in the blood;
Would you o’er evil a victory win?
There’s wonderful pow’r in the blood.